In the superheated temperatures of an Italian summer Sebastien Charpentier (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR600RR) took his fourth win of the year, extending his championship advantage to 34 points. The early front-runner was pole position rider Fabien Foret (Team Italia Megabike Honda CBR600RR) but after a close battle for the last half of a delayed 23-lap race, there was a mere 0.496 between the Frenchmen. Foret had led for ten laps, but from then on in, despite some valiant efforts, Charpentier was the leader across the line.”

Charpentier’s team-mate, Katsuaki Fujiwara (Winston Ten Kate Honda
CBR600RR) looked to be keeping a watching brief on proceedings, but dropped back as tyre wear and the sheer pace of the leading duo told. Nonetheless, he finished a comfortable third, over eight seconds ahead of fourth placed rider Kevin Curtain (Yamaha).

Tatu Lauslehto (Klaffi Honda CBR600RR) spent most of his 23-laps in a fight with four other riders, before securing tenth place, 27 seconds from the lead.

Into the top positions with his team-mate Foret at the start of the race, Italian rider, Michel Fabrizio (Team Italia Megabike Honda CBR600RR) experienced misfortune once more, as his machine stopped after only one full lap, having shed its drive chain.

Charpentier’s latest race win extends his championship advantage, and he now sits on a total of 140 points. Fujiwara is second, 106, with Foret fourth, on 74. Fabrizio claims seventh, on 42, while Lauslehto held onto his ninth place overall, on 36.

Charpentier, in good shape despite battling throughout a race held in temperatures of 32°C air and 50°C track, knew he was in a tough contest, albeit one he was prepared for after some practice low points.

“I am particularly happy because Misano is one of my least favourite circuits and it has not been easy this weekend. I’ve had a couple of crashes and conditions have been difficult to set up the bike properly.
After a strange start, when the lights were doing some peculiar things, I managed to settle into a rhythm and actually enjoyed the race. It was great fun and I feel OK, because I am in good physical shape.”

Foret, as his last lap attempts to get back on terms with Charpentier demonstrated, was simply desperate to add the race win to his pole win. His second place finish was nonetheless a season highlight for the 2002 World Champion.

“I’m happy with the bike now after our recent tests at Brno, that made a huge difference to our competitiveness. I just made a mistake under braking at Tramonto, and lost too much ground to Sebastien. But I am happy that we can have the same performance as the Ten Kate machines from now on.”

Fujiwara was not able to stay on the race winning pace, on a different race set-up to Charpentier, and experiencing greater traction issues than his team-mate.

“It was a good race but the start was a little bit mad, with everyone going so fast into the first corner. But the tyres were sliding very much - not so bad on the slower corners but on the fast left handers going onto the back straight, it was very, very difficult. For the last ten laps the tyres were finished so I had to ease back a little bit, and take third place.
Sebastien was riding very well and using the same tyres as me, so maybe my settings could have been a bit better.”

Lauslehto once more rode with confidence, in himself and his machinery; recording another top ten finish in his rookie season. He also holds an enviable record for scoring points in every single round so far. He frequently battled against local riders with hundreds of laps of Misano in race conditions.

“I was a bit worried about this because I am from Finland and it is not as hot as this there! But my physical condition was fine, even in the heat, and I was happy to race against such experienced riders. Some of them were at their home track and I was competitive with them.”

Fabrizio was distraught at his misfortune again, as his chain broke exiting the final corner of the first lap, causing his second technical retirement in two races.

“I don’t know what we have to do to change our luck, and especially because I felt very confident for the race itself. It’s a real shame that it was just the chain that came off the sprocket. We always adjust it after warm-up so we are not sure what happened.”

World Superbike Round 6 of 12

VERMEULEN SECOND IN BOTH MISANO RACES

Chris Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) secured a fighting pair of second places at an overheated Misano, coming within 1.491 seconds of his second race win of 2005 in the second outing. His finishing positions replicated his Superpole start, in the runner up position. For the second race in succession Pierfrancesco Chili (Klaffi Honda CBR1000RR) was the next best Fireblade rider, taking an aggregate seventh in race one and straight fifth in race two.

In the opening race of the day, stopped due to a crash and a subsequent oil spill, then delayed once more as riders jumped the re-start and had to be repositioned, Regis Laconi took his Ducati to the win, with an eventually lonely but assured second for Vermeulen. In aggregate third came championship leader Troy Corser. The podium finishing positions in race two were repeated, installing Vermeulen into second in the championship race, with 181 points to Corser’s 254.

Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) fought against illness and a comparative lack of traction to record a tenth and a seventh. Max Neukirchner (Klaffi Honda CBR1000RR) was twice a faller in the first race, then a retiree in race two.

Ben Bostrom (Renegade Honda Koji CBR1000RR) was once more battling in the midfield, scoring points in race one but falling again in race two. The championship, Chili is eighth, with 86 points, Muggeridge 10th with 65, Neukirchner 12th on 50 and Bostrom 18th on 23.

Vermeulen slugged it out all day and was pleased to have made progress between races.

“I was a little closer to Regis (Laconi) that time but the important thing was that I finished ahead of Troy in both races. Regis was really strong today and, although I was OK through the faster parts of the circuit, where I could pick up a tenth or two, I had very little grip in the tighter sections. I nearly lost it in the last chicane on virtually every lap. It was hard work in the heat and doubly hard having to compensate for no grip and the last five laps were really tough.”

Chili knows that he needs to find improvements in set-up to be on the same level as the podium challengers, but the 41-year-old was satisfied with the efforts made at Misano.

“I think we did as well as we could do with the conditions we had. When the tyres support me I can go fast like the guy in front but when the tyre performance drops down it drops our performance down too much. We need to make some more work with the rear linkage as well, because we are not giving the rear shock enough travel. I used the bigger rear tyres this weekend, and it brings with it heavy steering, but it does offer more rear grip, until it drops down.”

Muggeridge was in the wars and had the on-site medics to thank for allowing his to complete two points scoring finishes.

“I’m not feeling so great with this stomach problem that just left me with no energy after seven or eight laps. On top of the other problems that everyone else seems to have, it was just really, really hard work. I really think that without Clinica Mobile I wouldn’t have been able to do the second race today. They dosed me up with some fluids after race one, when I was just riding around really. I didn’t feel too bad at the start of race two but about six laps from the end I was getting a little queasy again.
It’s a real shame because I was so much happier on the bike this weekend.”

Neukirchner had an eventful raceday, crashing into Chili when the red flags came out, crashing again in the restarted race, then suffering a retirement in race two.

“In the first race I was behind Frankie and I did not see the red flag right away. So Frankie braked and I hit him, touching my brake lever and then crashing. In the restart the front brake was not right and I had to adjust it four or five times. It was still inconsistent, so I could never work out a real braking point each corner, and I fell again. In the second race I had a problem with the exhaust becoming very noisy, and something slippy going onto the rear tyre, so I had a lot of slides.”

Bostrom once more had to fight for every point, starting each race from 16th after failing to finish Superpole.

“I had a big crash this morning, which didn’t help, but race one wasn’t so bad. I just wanted to get more grip for the second race so I changed to the largest section rear tyre. It was a bad choice because we were just ploughing the front. You can only ride the thing like that so much and then you will crash. The lights also went red, then yellow, then red, in the restarted race, so a few of us went, wondering what was going on.”

The seventh rounds of the WSS and SBK championships take place at Brno on 17th July, a venue not used for SBK racing since the 1996 season.